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Howard Hack (1932?2015) earned lasting regional renown?especially in the San Francisco Bay Area?for exquisitely crafted, ?magic realist? paintings and still lifes. His meticulous technique and finesse put him at odds with the prevailing abstract movement and made him a distinctive and revered modern artist. The fact that he remained true to his original vision has endeared him to critics and has provided a solid base for his (albeit localized) reputation.The entire archive comes from the estate of Avon Neal, esteemed folklorist, and Ann Parker, a well known photographer. Hack refers to them as "Avon and Annie Neal" and although they were married in 1964 they used their birth names on quite a few joint publications. Their most famous work, Early American Stone Sculpture, Found in the Burying Grounds of New England by Avon Neal and Ann Parker (1984) was one such example. The correspondence from Hack to the Neals took place from 2003-2004 (although two of the letters are dated 2012) and were generally chatty in nature (Hack leaving for Guadalajara, etc.). In a couple of the letters Hack is asking Ann for her help in finding early photographic images of himself for a project. Included are two original photographs by Ann Parker of Howard Hack; both bear Parker's notations on the rear (Ann Parker/Howard Hack in His Studio/ San Francisco) and one is 14 x 11 and the other is 10 x 8. Often Hack included his text on a separate piece of paper and laid it into a (occasionally hand-colored) photocopy of a recent piece of art that he used as an envelope. They envelopes comprise a sort of traveling Hack exhibition.The exhibition announcements are not confined to the early 2000s so Hack must have sent them as gifts. They include a 1964 announcement for The Window Series at Booles Gallery in 1964; The Super Realists show (of which Hack was one of four artists) at the Nordness Galleries in 1967; an exhibition postcard for his Silverpoint Drawings at the Artists in Residence Gallery in 1994; 12 copies of the colorful and multipage exhibition catalog for his Window Series (oil paintings depicting scenes from San Francisco?s South of Market area designated for demolition) that was held at the De Young memorial Museum in 1967. The three original Hack pieces are; a work from the "Wooden Nickel Series" done in 1989 with Hack's customary pyrographic signature (HH 89) as well as a presentation inscription from Hack to the Neals; "Silverpoint #161, the Bar Code Lure:, inscribed by Hack to the Neals in 2002 on the verso along with another Hack image; The final piece is unnamed and only bears Hack's "HH92." Hack's works are represented in the collections of numerous museums, including the Achenbach Foundation for the Graphic Arts, San Francisco, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Massachusetts, National Museum of American Art, Washington, D.C., Oakland Art Museum, San Jose Museum of Art, Sara Robey Foundation, New York, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C., and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Hack died peacefully in 2015. Avon Neal died in 2003 and Ann Parker in 2022.
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